Wednesday, December 29, 2010

RAT BASTARDS #1story KURTIS J. WIEBEart & cover SCOTT KOWALCHUKMARCH 224 PAGES / FC†$2.99“MAD SCIENTISTS ARE A GIRL’S WORST ENEMY,” Part One†The Rat Bastards are a collection of runaway and homeless teenagers that have been taken in and cared for by an aging inventor, Dante. Applying his brilliance, he crafts marvelous technological contraptions. With his vision and help, the teenagers agree to don his technology for the betterment of mankind. Together, they combat tyranny and stop madmen from bringing harm to the world.

Monday, December 27, 2010

I've made no secret of my belief that Doctor Druid was clearly THE WORST AVENGER EVER!!

But I'm apparently not the only one who feels that way. There's a back-up feature in Avengers West Coast Annual #4 (1989) by Mark Gruenwald and Amanda Connor (!!), where-in The Wasp and She-Hulk "rate the hunkiness" of every male Avenger ever (up to that point, of course) on a 1 to 10 scale.

Yes, seriously.

Anyway, when they get to Anthony Druid, well, they're pretty darn harsh:

Gosh bless Bob Haney, that was only the first 6 pages. So let's continue, along with a bit of a compare/contrast with a more recent Batman epic.

Our heroes' captor, Colonel Vakla, is wisely suspicious that they might be trying to pull some fast one on him, because after all, Justice Leaguers don't defect every day, and Batman doesn't get captured very often. So he decides upon the ultimate test:

Oh, no, not The Demolishment!! (I'm sure it sounded better in the original People's Republicese...damned translators).

First up: Drugs!!

Duh!! Of course Batman has spent a lifetime building up an immunity to iocane posioning--I mean hallucinogenic drugs.

Allow me to compare to Batman R.I.P., wherein Batman was vulnerable to hallucinogenic drugs...but he had a back-up plan to create a fake personality (well, actually, two of them) in case it ever happened.

Next--The Tank!!

Again, to contrast, in Batman R.I.P., Batman was broken by the isolation take, wherein Doctor Hurt was able to implant hypnotic triggers in Bruce's mind. Bob Haney's Batman, though? Tougher than that:

No, Bruce didn't have to create "The Batman Of Zur-En-Arrh" this time around--he just had to be Batman.

Next--The Theatre Of The Absurd:

Prepare yourself, for an Aparo Freak-Out:

Enough to break Batman? Nope.

Or was it?? Batman's not out of the woods yet:

Well, looks like Batman was broken...we even get the "shoot Green Lantern, ha-ha the gun was empty" bit.

So what was behind the final door? What was the final act of The Demolishment?!?

D'oh!!!!

But, guess what--Batman wasn't really broken. You see, that was the whole point of this defection/rescue escapade--to discover the secrets of The Demolishment!!

So why did Batman seem to succumb??

Ah, only pretending. Good old Batman. Even the worst the Iron Curtain had to throw at him couldn't turn him into the Manchurian Candidate.

So there are your two versions of Batman: Grant Morrison's "always prepared for everything" Batman, who could be broken but had ridiculously convoluted schemes to overcome it; and Bob Haney, whose Batman was macho enough not to broken by any of those shenanigans in the first place.

You can decide for yourself which version of Batman you prefer, but let me put this to you: which version had Batman smacking around Hal Jordan?

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

OK, now that Bruce Wayne is back, it's time to make a very important point:

He's not a very good playboy.

At least not in the hand of modern writers. Take, for example, this conversation between jilted lovers girlfriends of Bruce's, from last week's Batman And Robin #18, complaining about his behavior in "relationships":

"Not before marriage"?????"That's ALWAYS the Bruce Wayne Story""??

Are you telling me, that out of all those models and actresses and debutantes and hot hot women he's dated, Bruce hasn't...ahem...finished the deal with any of them??

Of course, that's just scuttlebutt between a couple of jilted exes. But on the other hand, that's what Bruce's actual reputation is--the ladies are complaining that he's a saint instead of a sinner.

That's what a playboy is? Just dinners and maybe dancing while he looks for someone to propose to?

Man, I remember the good old days, when Bruce actually cared about his secret identity, and so made himself appear the drunken gadabout, the womanizer, the profligate. All the more to make it less likely that anyone will suspect that he is Batman.

Now? He's heading up international crime-fighting initiatives, and he's a "very principled" wait-until-after-we're-married-dear gentleman. Hell, I'll bet he doesn't even pretend to get drunk in public anymore.

And, if we're to believe Paul Cornell's story, the ladies get pretty ticked when you don't give them a "loving commitment" and become super-villains.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

UPDATE: One of our commentators may have found the origin of the "famous routine." Video embedded below.

While Dick Grayson is attending Hudson University, another famous person has decided to get a college education, too: "Actor-singer-dancer-comedian" Davy King!!

I know what you're thinking...that life story sounds suspiciously like that of famed entertainer Danny Kaye. Well, you're right, it does...but don't worry, they explicitly acknowledge in the credits that they're doing this as a tribute to him:

Now, you might be asking, why turn the Robin back-up strip from Batman #252 (1973) into a vehicle for Danny Kaye? And I guess the only answer is...why not??

Anyhoo, a series of accidents have plagued the campus since Danny Davy arrived. (SPOILER ALERT: Davy's agent is losing money while Davy is attending classes, so he's staging accident to persuade Davy that the college is cursed, so Davy will leave and go back on tour. Seriously). And while Davy is entertaining a ton of tykes at Dick Grayson's charity boys club, there's a big explosion, and they're all trapped inside while Robin rousts the bad guy. Don't worry, though:

And how did he do that?

Oh, man, this deserves a closer look:

Now, I have to admit that I'm not familiar enough with Danny Kaye's material to know if there was a real "famous routine" that this was based on, maybe where he pulled a Billy Joel or Michael Stipe on famous names of the time, or if Elliot S! Maggin was just freestylin' here. If anyone out there knows, drop a line or link in the comments section.

But whatever the basis, we have Danny Kaye "racing through the names of super-heroes in rhythm," including several non-DC heroes!! And that's worth the quarter this comic cost me, and then some!!

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About Me

I'm old enough to remember when comics were "Still Only 25¢!!"
The first comic I ever purchased on my own was Fantastic Four #170--the Thing in an exo-skeleton!! Luke Cage hired to fill the FF to 4!! The Puppet Master!! Boy, was I confused. Boy, was I hooked forever.
Contact at snell27[at]excite[dot]com